


Like It's Written in the Stars

by thegreatandpowerfultoaster



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (Mentioned in passing but again. To be safe), (Tagged to be safe its martins mother and shes awful), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Animal Death, Blood and Injury, Cows, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, First aid of questionable quality, Fluff, Good Cows, Humor, Language Barrier, Light Angst, Martin thinks hes in a romcom and everyone else thinks theyre in a horror movie, Monster Jonathan Sims, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter and elias are slightly less awful than usual, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Taking, To a whole new level, Verbal Abuse, We have it all in here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 19,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23405878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatandpowerfultoaster/pseuds/thegreatandpowerfultoaster
Summary: What is he afraid of? A little bit of gossip? He's dealt with that his whole life anyways. It's not like they're going to say, "Oh, that Martin Blackwood, he's probably got an eldritch abomination in his attic, you know."Except he does! That's exactly it. But he can't not invite them in, right?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Everyone, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 513
Kudos: 967





	1. Prologue

The day before it happens is wholly unremarkable in every single way. Martin gets up and feeds the cows, and the chickens. He checks on his mother fourteen times, and eight out of those she's asleep, and six she yells at him. Georgie Barker comes by to buy eggs, and ends up staying for a very quiet lunch out on the porch. 

He knits for a while after she leaves, and bakes a pie, and takes a bath, and finds a dozen other things to busy himself with. He makes dinner, eats it alone, and goes to bed, shivering because the heating is broken in their old farmhouse for the second time in a month and nobody will be able to get out to fix it until the end of the week.

In the middle of the night, a light flashes brighter than daylight, and a couple moments later the house shakes and he hears the noise. A screeching like a firework gone off, the windows rattling in their frames and then something hitting the ground hard. 

And then it's silent and dark again, like nothing had happened at all.

Martin shrugs on a jacket and a pair of old wellies, and marches out to the barn. He knows he isn't very frightening, but if the kids from the village are out here in the dead of night with fireworks of all things next to the barn, he's going to at least have to try.

They'll laugh at him, and his mother will laugh at him for even trying, but he's so, so tired of just letting them do what they want, and bother the cows. 

Martin sucks in a quick breath when he sees it. The barn hadn't been hit at all, thank god. But there's a crater in the ground a solid seven or eight meters away, smoking and settling, and glowing green, fading in and out like a heartbeat.

The hens squawk and the roosters crow in the coop, and the cows shuffle around in the barn, clearly disturbed, but he doesn't pay them any mind as he stalks towards the crater, ground crunching beneath his feet.

This isn't...This couldn't possibly be from a firework.

The smoke clears slowly, and Martin steps into the pit, waving his hand in front of his face to clear the dust and smoke a bit. 

There is something laying there, in the middle of everything, surrounded by debris of hanging wires and twisted metal. It's only a little smaller than Martin, so maybe about the size of an average person? Other than that, absolutely nothing about it could be compared to a human. It is a great unmoving mass of black tentacles, shiny in the sharp green light. It has an observable torso, sort of, half tangled in the tentacles, and sort of a head, although it seems to be entirely without features. 

Obviously he's panicking. he knows what this looks like. Maybe he's not freaking out as much as he should be, though. But it isn't moving. He can get away. Martin takes a step back, and is painfully aware of the sound of rocks snapping against the heels of his boots, echoing through the night.

The thing opens its eye - and then it opens the rest of them, and they all train onto Martin.


	2. Act I: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm living for this au.....

It has so, so many eyes. It's face, which Martin had originally thought to be entirely featureless is covered in them, all the way around, like there's no front of back. They're studded down the tentacles in a line and cover the bit he thought might be a torso in full, like a face. 

The eyes are all mismatched, different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some look less human than others, entirely black, or with red sclera, or shaped not like an eye at all. They all blink together.

He can feel it's full attention on him, eyes piercing like arrows, but it only lasts for a moment.

The thing starts to rasp something, rock in place and squelch and squish and make a horrible wailing sound. One of the tentacles reach out towards Martin and he steps back again. He falls, and lets out a loud gasp, but its reach falls short.

The thing shrinks back, and rocks back and forth before finally rolling over to reveal its underside, no less covered in eyes and soaked through with a dark liquid that looks green in the light but might be an entirely different color out of it.

It's got a thick piece of metal embedded into this side of its torso, and the eyes around it are still shut tight. It's shuttering is growing weaker as the liquid continues to deep out. Even through the mental haze, Martin is very aware that it's dying.

It's dying - so maybe it doesn't want to hurt him, right? Maybe it wants help? Except...Martin's not exactly sure how to help it, or if he even wants to. But what happens if it dies? He'll have the newspaper here by morning, and even worse probably scientists, and his life will become a giant publicity grab (and she'll hate that), and this thing's life (if it even makes it until then) will be a science experiment, and...alien or not no one really deserves that.

This is stupid. He knows it's so, so stupid but he pushes off the ground anyways and takes a hesitant step towards the thing. It doesn't seem to notice him, still shaking and keening in a mockery of pain.

Martin's never had to treat an injury quite like this, but he does remember something about how you aren't supposed to remove the object? Or is that so you can call an ambulance, which he can't do?

In either case, he doesn't exactly have a first aid kit out here, so he's going to have to bring the thing into the house. It shouldn't be much of a problem in the technical side of things. Like he said, the thing is quite a bit smaller than Martin so he's almost certain he can move it without jostling around the bit it's impaled on.

This is, in retrospect, a bigger problem on the mental side of things. He's gotta touch it. It's awful. It's a slimy, bleeding mass of eyes and tentacles that is writhing and seems to be expressing its pain very loudly for such a small thing. Martin's not squeamish, really. He lives on a farm - has his whole life, and he likes bugs, and spiders, and basically every stereotypically gross thing you could think of he doesn't mind. But this is....different, right?

And time sensitive. He shuts his eyes for a moment and resolved to not think about it until it's over and done with. He leans down and scoops in up in both arms carefully, and stars a slow walk back to the house. It falls still but continues to wail, a duel toned thing that isn't coming from anywhere, now that Martin thinks about it, being as it hasn't got a mouth he can figure. 

(He wasn't going to think about it! He's thinking about it anyways.)

Thank God for small mercies, his mother doesn't wake up, and he doesn't trip on the stairs.

The thing flinches with its entire body when he turns the bedroom light on (after some shuffling) and Martin gently lowers it down into his bed. "Stay still," he says, although he's more than a little bit sure it can't understand him. 

The first aid kit in the bathroom is pretty well stocked. Martin isn't exactly largely accident prone but he does have his moments, and mum is....mum has her reasons to get upset, he knows. Just at him and at everything, but usually she manages to hurt herself somehow when getting upset. Glass. Usually it's glass from broken dishes or vases or things like that, so he has lots of gauze, at least.

"Okay," he says, hauling the kit in and setting next to the thing. "Well, if you didn't want to kill me before this, I think I've got a way to fix that."

The metal is easy to pull out (if he ignores the inhuman screaming sounds), and he gets the bleeding mostly stopped pretty quickly. The fluid is mostly translucent, but a little blue, not like it had appeared in the green light.

Martin bandages it up with more gauze and tape than is strictly necessary, and the writhing stops before the sound does.

It's eyes look at him again, and it feels uncomfortable, but he tries to steel himself to it and look back. He doesn't know how he didn't notice it before, but it's crying. Or at least, that's the closest thing he could call it. Clear fluid leaks from every single one of the eyes and dries in a dull crust down the thing. Martin smiles at it. "You'll be okay. I know it hurts, and if I knew I could give you anything I would, but I'm not exactly sure what you can take and what you can't."

In blinks at him, and for some reason Martin thinks it almost looks annoyed. 

He finds a clean washcloth downstairs and gets it wet, before slowly approaching it and meaning to start where the most of the blood is.

It is promptly smacked out of his hand by a slightly damp tentacle. 

Martin raises his hands in surrender and quickly backs up. A tentacle searches the floor and settles around the washcloth, before drawing up to dab at himself. "Oh," he says. "Okay. Uhm. You can do it yourself, then. I'm going to go move your - I guess it was a spaceship. " Martin sighs into his hands, running them down his face. "I'm going to go move your spaceship and try to fill in that hole, then."

He's not even sure what else to do. Moving it in here meant nothing to someone who'd heard the crash came by to have a look. Martin gets halfway to the door before turning around and watching it for a moment. It passes the washcloth between a tentacles to reach everywhere, which is fascinating and kind of weird and gross. It seems to notice him looking and looks back at him. Martin sighs again. "I don't know if you can understand me, but if you can, please, please don't go anywhere."

The thing doesn't make any gesture to indicate that it heard him, but it does turn its gaze away from him.


	3. Act I: Part 2

The remains of the spaceship - oh god! It's a spaceship, should he be handling this? - Fit fine in the back of the barn, out of the way of Annabelle, Buttercup, and Daisy II. Martin is incredibly careful about this, because he can really only imagine the problems that would arise should one of the trio decide that it's a good idea to chew on alien technology.

The crater is harder to fill in. That said, he does do it because of the lack of options. By the time it's (mostly) filled and packed the sun is mostly up and it's time to do everything else and he's already sticky and tired. He lets the cows out into the pasture. They're still seeming a little jumpy but they'll have forgotten by lunch.

His mother will probably be up soon, if she's up at all today. He ought to have breakfast ready, even if she doesn't. Even if she doesn't eat it, again. Even if he has to clean it up from the floor and wall and baseboard again. 

Besides...Maybe their guest would like some? He doesn't even know where to start with feeding it. It makes sense to him that if it can breath air, maybe it can eat human food, too? Except...it doesn't have a mouth. So maybe not. 

Maybe it doesn't need to eat at all.

Which, doesn't make sense, but that lines up with everything else about his day so far. Whatever. He'll make eggs, and if it doesn't eat eggs, he'll figure it out from there.

The screen door creaks open, and the floor shifts under his feet. No sign of mum, no sign of the alien that looks like something Lovecraft wrote about. That's a plus. He heads upstairs, deciding to take a quick shower before he makes breakfast. 

The thing is still laying in his bed, the washcloth set on the bedside table. It's eyes are closed again, and it moves up and down slowly, almost like it's breathing. Martin sneaks past it, hoping to not wake it up again, opening and closing his dresser, and sneaking into the bathroom.

It's still asleep (or at least is pretending to be) when he comes out, still toweling off his hair. 

Eggs take a solid three minutes. He brings some to mum, who is much, much less good at pretending to be asleep than the thing is. That's okay. Ignoring him hurts, but the yelling is _definitely_ worse. 

He just leaves them on the table next to her bed and slowly closes the door upstairs behind him. 

"Uhm, I brought you food? Except - You know, I don't exactly know what you eat, so..."

One of its eyes (a weirder one, narrow and a sort of sickly, pale green) opens to peer at him as he gets closer, and holds the plate out so it's at roughly eye level (ha). It opens a couple more, before reaching out three tentacles. 

Martin watches it take the plate in two of them, and prod at the egg with another. "Should I close my eyes or something so you can eat it?" About half the eyes look at him with that same sort of annoyed look again. "Look, I don't know how you work! Can you even eat it?"

It gives him no indication as to an answer either way.

He has to keep reminding himself to breath. This is all just so weird and wrong, and everything about it...It's like it hasn't set in yet, exactly. It should be horrifying, or something. 

"If you can't eat it," Martin sighs, "Can I have it back? For the chickens, I mean."

It doesn't even know what chickens are. This is absurd, why is he still talking to it?

It pulls the plate closer to itself. Nope. Not getting those back, because they are apparently interesting, or something. Martin can't really imagine any other reason it wants the plate of scrambled eggs. "Well," he says. "This has been fun and all, but I'm going to go." 

It grabs him by the collar of his t-shirt and pulls. _Well_ , Martin thinks. _It's been a nice run_. It hasn't, really but there no use being dreary in his last moments before an eldritch horror that presumably fell from space kills him. He squeezes his eyes shut and hopes that it's at least quick.

He nearly gets a mouthful of gauze for his trouble. "Oh," he says. " Oh, you need me to change it? Okay." This is obviously the case because when he starts peeling back the gauze he's not whacked upside the head with a tentacle or actually killed. 

The wound is...mostly gone. It looks less like a full on impaling thing now and more like a gash. Still bad, but healing at a rate impossible for anything that wasn't...not of this planet. He changes the bandages slowly, the thing watching him intently the whole time. Martin keeps talking, to try to keep the mood light for himself. "I can't just keep calling you the thing, or it," he says. " if you can understand me, can you tell me your name!"

It lets out a sound. Long and moaning, two voices in two different pitches and not really like words at all. 

"Huh. Yep, can't pronounce that one, sorry."

He gets that annoyed look, like he can do anything about it. "How can you understand me?" Martin asks. He doesn't get a real clear answer to that one, just some tentacles flopping around like that means anything to him. He finishes the bandages, and backs up, and to his surprise, the thing stands, too. "Oh no," Martin says. "You're hurt, you can't go anywhere! Not to mention that if someone sees you, I doubt they're going to take it as well as I have, so far."

One of the things tentacles reaches out behind it and pushes the blankets back to reveal an open and empty bottle of ibuprofen. If memory serves him, that's the bottle from the first aid kit, which had been mostly full. "Oh my dear Lord," Martin says loudly, before remembering that there are other people in this house he most certainly doesn't want to hear. "You're going to destroy your liver!" He whispers, putting in as much anger as he can muster.

He doesn't even know if it has a fucking liver.

The thing squirms along the floor, head and torso upright, towards the door.

He grabs it. Why does he grab it, what is he thinking? it's warm and wet under his touch, and an eyeball in the way closes as his hand closes around its armless shoulder. "Wait!" He says, and it stops to look at him again. "You have to be quiet," he says. "Or my mother will hear, and she won't like you. At the best she'll just ignore you, but at the worst we'll have half an hour before Officer Hussain's knocking on the door, and I can't do that today, not with this, okay?"

It blinks once, and squirms down the stairs, sounding like too-wet noodles. Martin buries his face in his hands again and lets himself have a quick panic before heading down the stairs.


	4. Act I: Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I interest you in another chapter in these trying times?

It's looking at its spaceship in the barn, so Martin supposes he can leave for long enough to get the landline. The girls don't seem to mind the thing, even if it looks at them nervously, like they're going to snap at him any moment. 

The phone is loud, even from in the barn. He runs, to make sure he gets there in time, and when he picks it up he's out of breath. "Hello?"

 _"Hey Martin,"_ comes Sasha's voice, backed by the clanking of dishes and low, indistinct voices. _"Are you still going to be in town tonight?"_

What day of the week is it? It can't be Thursday already, right? "Uhm," he says. He missed movie night last week, because he'd had to drive his mum up to the doctor, he couldn't possibly miss this weeks, too. But how exactly is he supposed to trust an alien to stay where he asked if to when their communication was one-way, at best? "I'm not - I'm not totally sure yet?"

 _"That's okay,"_ Sasha says. _"Tim was just wondering what your vote for the movie was. He dug up the reel for The Room, but my vote is still on Sharknado 5: Global Swarming."_

"Well, those both sound properly awful, but I think I'll leave it up to you guys? Since I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it, I mean."

 _"Are you sure? You can still vote, even if -"_ Sasha's voice suddenly gets far-away sounding, and he hears a loud sound, and then another voice talks into the phone.

_"Martin! Did you see that flash last night? I saw, and had to be something by your house."_

Oh. That was bad. "Er, hi to you too, Melanie. I - I saw it, but honestly I went out to check the barn and after that was okay I sort of went back to sleep." 

The thing is, Martin knows he's a good liar. He has to be, if he wants to to ever leave the house. Melanie's a little harder to lie to, though that's mostly because her entire job as a reporter in a tiny town is to pry the truth out of a bunch of people who want to overstate the truth for page-time. 

_"Huh, so you didn't see where it landed?"_

"No?" he says. "Honestly I thought it was the Fairchild kids out here with fireworks again. What do you suppose it was?" Because the universe hates him and loves cosmic irony, the front door opens and shuts and the thing squiggles into the living room, taking in the sights of the way in. 

_"Well I think - What the hell's that sound, Martin?"_

That manages to catch him unaware enough to throw off his answer. "Uhm...just...what noise?"

It picks up a book off the bookshelf and starts trying to flip through it, pretty unsuccessfully. He'd be laughing if he wasn't on the brink of a panic.

 _"Uh huh,"_ Melanie says. _"Look, if you're mum's done something shitty again, Martin you can tell us. We're your friends, and we all know whenever she's having a bad time of it you're having a worse one, so just come by if you can tonight, okay? I'll be by sometime tomorrow to take a look out by your place, see if I can't find anything. Maybe it'll be my breakthrough story."_

The phone shuffles around again. It's Sasha again. _"Sorry, Martin. She really didn't mean anything by saying that about your mum, we just worry about you, sometimes."_

"Right, right. I know that." And he does, and sometimes in the back of his mind he knows they're right about her, and the way she treats him, but she's his mother. 

_"So! The Room, or Sharknado?"_

Martin can't help but smile and laugh, although it must sound hysterical and relived rather than anything else. "Uhm, Sharknado, I guess." The thing turns its attention on him to narrow it's eyes for a moment before returning to the books. At least he's putting them back when he's done looking at them, that's here than Martin usually manages. "Thanks for calling, Sasha, but I really got to go."

"Okay, bye Martin!"

He turns back around to face the thing. "Can you actually read those? No, no. This is stupid. How about, if you definitely can understand me, blink twice."

It does. A full body blink. All the eyes, all at once blink twice. "Okay, so how about this. Since you can understand me, but I can't understand you, blink once for no, and twice for yes. Sound okay?" It does it again.

Reasonably sure this isn't some amazing fluke (it would be for him, wouldn't it) he breaths in deeply and buried both in his hands on his hair and lightly tugs. "Okay," he says. "Can I ask you some questions?"

Yes.

"Do you want to sit down?"

One. No. So it's going to divide its attention between the books and Martin. That's okay. That's a step up from the ignoring he usually gets. "You're not from this planet, right?"

Yes.

"Uhm, good? I don't know, I'm glad you're not some government experiment or something gone wrong, I guess. Can you fix your ship? It looked pretty bad." But he doesn't exactly know anything about spaceships, so maybe it was easy to fix. 

He gets three blinks, on that one. "You're not sure?" He guesses. 

No.

"You don't have the tools?"

No. He's running out of ideas. "You're...missing a part?"

Yes. 

"I'm sorry. I wish you could tell me what it was, so I could help, but I doubt we'd have much around here that could really work for whatever it does anyways, though. Do you miss home?"

He doesn't expect the no he gets. "Really?" He says. "But you can't possibly be happy to be here of all places, right?" 

Yes. 

"Huh," he says. "I wish I could ask you why."

It silently flips through the pages of books and he lays entirely on the couch, intending to catch a cat nap while it's occupied where he can see it, and hear if it goes anywhere else. He's not out of questions, of course but it seems rude to ask so many when he can't answer any back. 

He doesn't manage to close his eyes before he hears a loud, sharp, "Martin!" from down the hall. He smiles at the thing and pushes himself of of the couch and down. It doesn't try to follow, thankfully. 

She's looking...bad but not any worse than the last time he'd seen her properly. The eggs on the bedside table are gone, and he feels distantly pleased, even knowing he'll never get her to admit she actually ate them. 

"You're sitting up! How are you feeling?" he asks.

"Are you out there talking to yourself? Do you know what people will say, if they hear you?"

He doesn't bother to tell her that people talk anyways, always have, being that he's the only child of a town native that decided to skip town when his son was eight and his wife got sick. "I'm sorry," he says instead. "It just gets quiet out here, you know?"

"I'm not asking you to stay. You can leave any time you want." 

Whether she wants him here or not, she knows just as well as he does that he can't leave. "I know, mum."

She fixes him with a stare - less eyes than the alien has, but it makes him shrink back, more. "Get out."

"Okay, mum."


	5. Act I: Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Popping in to say thank you so much for the comments and the kudos!

"E - Enjoying the books?" He says, much quieter than her been before, coming back out from the hallway. He gets two blinks. "Okay. You could bring them upstairs, if you want. I've got more up there, but they're mostly poetry. Do you know what poetry is?"

No. 

"Oh, well." He gets to teach an alien about poetry. Life does, occasionally come through with rewards. "I could show you some, if you wanted? You don't have to, obviously, but -"

Yes.

"I'll make some tea, then, and meet you up there? For - for me, I guess."

It doesn't bother to answer this time, Just begins to gather books seeming at random and cradle them in its tentacles. Martin takes that as his cue to slowly back into the kitchen, catching himself with his hands behind him so he doesn't completely slam into the counter. His hands shake as he fills the kettle and digs the tin out of the cupboard, although he can't possibly pinpoint the cause of the shaking.

When he goes back upstairs with the tea in his hands, it's looking at a baby names book and giving him a curious look at the same time.

"I was trying to figure out cow names," he flushes. They'd all ended up with stereotypical cow names anyways, but that wasn't really his fault so much as it was just so easy to look at a cow and go, 'Ah, that one's a Buttercup.' "It's not even a book, really. Just a list of names, you know?" 

The thing flips through it anyways, many eyes scanning the pages. "You could choose something out of there for me to call you," he says. "Since it seems like you're going to be sticking around for a while, or at least until you figure out where else you want to go."

No.

"Okay, you don't have to, I - I just -"

It thrusts the book towards Martin and blinks twice. Yes. He's so shell shocked he has to think about that one for a minute. "You want me to choose what to call you?" 

Yes.

"Isn't that kind of a big responsibility?" 

It gives him an upset look, and slaps its tentacles on the ground with a wet sort of flap, which doesn't really tell Martin anything other than he's done something wrong, somewhere along the line. "I'm sorry! I haven't got a clue what you're saying."

It shuts the book for him and points at one word on the cover (which only really works because a a very large word), and looks at him expectantly. He gets an idea. "Oh. Names, because of you've got a translator or whatever, names wouldn't really mean anything to you, right? Just uhm...Identifying sounds?" He gets a yes, and takes that to mean he ought to keep going. "So you don't mind what you're called?" No. "You want me to say them so you can hear them so you can find one you like?"

Yes. 

"I can do that, I'll just sit down and go from page one, I guess?"

It doesn't do anything to answer. He supposes it really can't, so he doesn't take it too hard. Instead, Martin sits on the bed and starts reading off names. Eventually it stops giving him no's and just let's him go and on. And then he gets it. He misses the confirmation, at first, mistaking it for a very empathic no, but he gets a tentacle around his arm and a tug, and he says, "Jon? You want to be called Jon?"

Two blinks. "Okay," Martin says. He's not sure what he was expecting, but it fits as well as anything else does. "Jon. Hi, Jon. I'm Martin."

Yes. And then again - Yes. Yes. Yes. 

He laughs. "Jon, would you like to read some poetry, now?"

Jon looks at him for a long moment before it says yes. 

* * *

You win some, you lose some, Martin supposes. Jon hates Keats. Like, really hates Keats. How that happens, he's not even sure. He seems to be okay with Shelley, Whitman, and Wilfred Owen.

It hasn't gone as far as to blink to signal that it wanted to stop reading Keats, but with that many eyes, it was pretty good at expressing some recognizable emotions, and Martin was made fully and entirely aware of his alien guest's taste

Martin lowers the book he'd been holding at a ninety degree angle above his head since he played down, and Jon had crept over to sit on the bed next to him, all his eyes focusing on martin. He closes it and looks at Jon. "I write poetry too, but I take a lot of inspiration from Keats, so you probably wouldn't like it much."

Jon ignores him, and instead pushes another book at him. Martin hasn't even known they still had it. 

"If you want to read that one, I - You can do it yourself."

Jon only pushes it at him again. "No," Martin says. And then, because he doesn't owe Jon any sort of explanation, he stands up and starts to pull the coverings off the bed. "I forgot to wash these after this morning...last night? Could I have you move, please?"

It does, sort of sliding of the bed before pulling itself up to its full height and following Martin in to the kitchen and stretching up even further to try to peer over his shoulder as he washes his hands. "Want lunch?" He asks without turning around. 

No. 

"Okay. I don't think mum will, either and I don't, but I thought I'd ask, you know? I wonder what you eat. Wish there was a better way to ask."

It pulses, rocking back and forth on its tentacles and making a quiet noise like it's just had an epiphany. It then proceeds to disappear out the front door, which is more than a little worrying. "Wait!" He says, following Jon out, who thankfully lacks a bone structure in its lower body, so it's even slower than Martin. 

Jon hauls open the barn door, somehow and gets all the way back to where the remains of his spaceship sit. He ignores the urge to carefully pick the straw off of Jon, and after a moment of watching it fidget with its whole body and pick at little pieces of the machinery, Martin sighs.

This is Martin's life now. "I'm going to...I'll be back. With tea. Again."


	6. Act I: Part 5

Martin sits and watches Jon tinker with things for a while, sipping at his tea and sitting in one of the crates he keeps out there to sit on while he milks the cows. "Is there anything can help with?" He asks at some point. Jon stretches out abruptly and whacks him on the sides of the head. Martin flinched and leans back, hitting his head on the barn wall. "Hey!" He says. "I was just asking!"

Jon blinks at him. "What?" 

It blinks again. "I don't know what you're saying."

Jon carefully pulls itself out of the wreckage of the ship and heads back out of the barn, except for the first time all its eyes seem to catch on the girls just outside the door. It looks set them, and then at Martin. "Those are the cows? They won't hurt you if they don't think you're going to hurt them or the baby ones. Do you want to see them closer?"

Jon blinks twice and Martin grins. "Okay, detour to the pasture, then." 

They aren't very far outside the barn, but Martin goes slow so Jon can keep up. Daisy II comes over first, chewing and gently swaying as he walks, and her calf bounds along beside her. Jon immediately backs up. "C'mere," Martin holds out a hand towards Jon, beckoning it in. "Just come give her a pat, she won't mind." 

Jon creeps forward slowly, one of its tentacles extending like a snake ready to strike. Daisy watches passively as Jon sort of bops her on the head lightly before his immediate retreat.

He laughs. "See? It's okay. She likes attention, actually." The calf buts into Martin's leg and he scratches his head. Jon starts to pat at the baby, apparently much less intimidated with the smaller size. The baby starts to but into jon, but he's still small enough that Martin can scoop him up into his arms with no problem. Daisy doesn't mind.

"Sorry," Martin says around the calf. "He probably would've knocked you right over, huh." 

Jon takes off back towards the house (well, not takes off, really) and that is the end of the alien and cow adventure. Martin holds the calf for a minute before plopping him back next to Daisy and stumbling towards the house. 

Jon's (actually very quietly) shifting through every single one of Martin's worldly possesions. It gets as far down the hall as his mum's door, which he quickly stops in front of and shakes his head. Jon moves on to the next door, which is really just storage. Martin decides to let Jon have at it while straightening up the mess it's left behind. 

He hears a loud trilling sound a couple minutes later, and then the door opens and shut again, squeaking slightly. Martin sits back down on the couch and decides to give himself two minutes of rest from whatever Jon's doing, and closes his eyes.

* * *

Something warm-ish pats him on the cheek and Martin shoots awake, intending to hit whatever had just touched him as hard as possible. About halfway into throwing his fist out in front of him he remembers the alien currently living in his house. Thankfully he doesn't hit anything but air but all of Jon's eyes are staring at him, wide and open in a sort of shock. 

"S - sorry," Martin says, but he's already flushing. "I guess I fell asleep. Didn't really sleep last night, you know?"

Jon's eyes dart away from him as it slowly holds out something in its tentacles. Some old earbuds that don't work unless you sort of twist them attached to a little green circuit board. "You want me to put them on?"

Yes. 

Against his better judgement he does, lets Jon keep holding the circuit board. The headphones screech and crackle and Martin immediately pulls them out. "Ow." He says. "Whatever you're trying to do, I'm guessing it isn't supposed to do that." 

No. 

Jon starts to leave again, for the front door.

"Uhm, good luck?"

He doesn't see Jon again until about nine, when he puts the cows in, and then again at nine thirty, when he goes upstairs to Martin's room (where Martin is currently sitting, tapping out the rhythm of a stanza with his pen) and sort of just flops onto the bed, tentacles spread out. He doesn't have the earbud-based contraption with him, this time around.

"I'll go get the sheets." Maybe Jon gets cold? Or maybe he just wants to avoid anything like an awkward situation. 

Mum is up, shambling around the kitchen a bit like a zombie and struggling to reach up one-on-one of the higher cupboards for something, presumably the peanut butter since she's got the bread and strawberry preserves out. Martin grabs it and holds it out, but she looks right through him so he just sets it on the counter with everything else. "G'night," he says and smiles, even knowing she won't answer. 

* * *

It occurs to him too late to do anything about it. "I can't really take the couch," Martin is saying, pacing the bedroom floor. "I mean, she's up, now and it's be weird if I just said that I was sleeping on the couch and then she's come up here so there's really no other option, right? But there's got to be, I can't just -"

A tentacle slaps him on the arm, not hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to have been intentional. "Huh?"

Jon slaps the covers in his arms, and then the floor. "What? No. That's...As fast as you're healing, you're still healing. I'll sleep on the floor." 

He gets a slow, singular blink. Definite no.

Martin laughs. It just hits him all at once how silly this is. Horrifying, but silly. "This isn't - sorry. You're nice and all, but this isn't going to be the part where I just say we can share." That would be...Yeah, no. There are limits. "The floor plus a blanket and pillow will be fine."

The floor plus a blanket and pillow is not fine, but Martin is most definitely not going to complain.


	7. Act I: Part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously there's the inherent au-ness of this entire thing but I also have no clue where lilacs do and don't grow so alternate universe where lilacs grow wherever I tell you they do which includes wherever the heck this au takes place

There is a tentacle draped off the bed, and even without his glasses Martin can tell that Jon is just pretending to be asleep. The two eyes he can see immediately shut when he opens his eyes all the way, and Martin smiles. 

"Hey," he says. "Sleep good?"

Jon's eyes open again, slowly and it blinks twice. "Hmm. Good." Martin didn't, really but Jon didn't ask (can't ask) so he doesn't need to know. "Well, I'm going to go make breakfast and see if I can't sneak some in to mum. You're going back out to the barn, I guess?" 

Yes, again.

"Okay. Uhm, Melanie will be over later, so if you could stay in the barn, I'll keep her out." It's not a long term solution to the problem but maybe he can ease Sasha or Georgie or someone less...intense into the idea first. 

He's still laying on the floor, watching as Jon shuts most of its eyes and flops on to the floor. He doesn't laugh, but it's a challenge. It doesn't move the most gracefully, that's for sure. Martin isn't so lucky as to have that sort of...dexterity, so it takes him another couple minutes. 

His back makes a sound as he pulls himself upright and he winces. That, plus the limited amount of sleep he's had in the last two nights? He might help not have a choice but to sleep on the couch tonight. 

It's eggs for breakfast, again because even though he sells to people in town he's always got a couple dozen on hand. Besides that, they're fast and easy and he can get the cows out of the barn before Melanie comes by.

She didn't say a when, but Melanie likes to drop by for investigative purposes when she feels like she'll be least expected, and typically that means first thing in the morning.

Well, first thing in the morning for her. Martin's singlehandedly running a small farm and that lends itself to some early mornings. 

He's feeding the chickens when he hears the telltale crackle of tires over gravel roads and he waves towards Melanie's battered minivan. She pulls up by the lilac bushes by the side of the house and pops out the driver side, along with Sasha out the passenger side. He dumps the rest of the chicken food into their trough and lets them flap over and swarm it while he shuts the door to the coop behind him and brushes his dusty hands on his pants. 

"Hey!" 

Sasha waves back to him as Melanie opens the side door and starts digging out all sorts of equipment out of her van. The bottom of his stomach drops out. "I - I thought you were just going to be looking around?"

Melanie leans out to look at him, camera hung on her neck and something that looks like some kind of meter in her hand. "Yes. I am, but well, I was talking to Elias -" Martin and Sasha share a look over the hood of the van. Melanie scoffs. "Yes I know, thank you. He's a dick, but he's an educated dick. Especially on this sort of thing. Well, I think I know what it was." 

"What do you think it was?" He asks, and his voice doesn't shake at all. 

She smiles proudly, ducking back in the van for a moment to pull out...uh...night vision goggles? "Comet. Or at least part of one. Elias says there's one that passes every hundred years or so that we haven't really got a good look at what it's made out of but it's orbit has been deteriorating really bad for the last couple of years. Technically something of that size should have brought down a lot of stuff with it, but the atmosphere could've slowed it down and burned most of it up."

"And...Elias told you all of that?" 

"Oh, no. I stopped paying attention to him after about ten seconds, he's an insufferable bastard, but I did a little research on my own. Can I camp out here until I've got a lead?"

"I'm just here for moral support," says Sasha, smiling. "And to see if you're alright. 

"Uh," he says. 

"Thanks." Melanie flashes him a sharp smile. "You won't even notice I'm here. I'll just set up in the barn." She hoists up a camera tripod into her shoulder and starts heading to the barn. Martin is stunned into silence for long enough that she gets a pretty big head start. The breath is sucked out of him before he even starts walking. 

"Melanie! Melanie, it's not - the barn isn't - the whole thing's sort of a mess. I mean - the loft is, maybe it'd be better if I just moved a couple things in the house." She just keeps walking, waving off every concern he can think of. 

"Wait!" Martin yells but he's not fast enough to jump in front of the barn doors and Melanie either doesn't hear him or doesn't care. "Melanie, Melanie stop, you can't go in there!" 

He hears both of them gasp, and the beginnings of a whimper. "Martin," Melanie says quietly, and mostly evenly. "There's something in here. Get Sasha out, close the door behind you, and call Daisy or Basira."

"No!" he says, finally caught up inside the barn. Melanie looks like she's got the fight part of fight or flight bubbling up and almost over, an an arm in front of Sasha, who's shaking and covering her mouth with both her hands. In her glasses is reflected Jon, curled tight in on itself and its eyes just as wide and frightened as Sasha's. "He's not going to hurt you. I promise. Please just - Just let me explain, okay?"

"This better be good, Martin. This better be really fucking good."

"Promise. Just please come inside and have some tea, okay?"

Both Melanie and Sasha slowly back out of the barn, the latter holding Martin's hand so tightly he wonders of its going to break. He gives Jon what he hopes is a sympathetic look as the door closes and the sunlight it's bathed in turns into faint green light. 


	8. Act I: Part 7

Melanie refuses the tea which leaves an extra cup on the table, but Martin doesn't move to take it away. She's got both fists curled and eyes narrowed. Sasha still won't look right at him, instead peering into the mug. 

It's quiet, but not the sort of comfortable quiet it usually is.

"So," Melanie says. "Do you _really_ have an explanation for whatever the hell that was, or better yet why you're defending the thing that looks like it came out of Lovecraft's nightmares?" 

Does he have an explanation? "It was hurt," he says. "I couldn't just leave it to die."

Melanie's head slams into the table. "Of course you fucking couldn't."

"What's that supposed to mean?" If Sasha weren't somewhere else, right now this is probably where it'd stop. She's not, though. "If you have something to say about me, Melanie then just say it."

"You've got that thing in your barn because you couldn't leave well enough alone. You didn't look at it and say, hey! Maybe I shouldn't touch that thing because it's full of fucking eyes. You looked at and went, oh, it's hurt. And then you make that your problem! It's probably plotting to kill you in your sleep and replace you!"

"That's - That's ridiculous!" 

"That's not the point! Why are you defending it?" 

"Because it can't go home! Who else is going to do anything for it? What if it was you, alone in a weird place and dying? You'd want me to just leave you?" That particular revelation is news to him, even as he's saying it. They both fall quiet and Melanie's head falls back down onto the table. 

It's hard to swallow, but he takes a drink of tea anyways. It's starting to be more lukewarm than hot. 

"How do you know it won't hurt you?" Sasha asks, still staring into the tea like a scrying bowl.

"I don't. But...It could have before now. Why would it wait? And - and Jon's - Jon seems nice -" Melanie sits up and scowls. "I know, I know! It's just - just trust me, okay? It's my problem. I know that. Just, please don't tell anyone?"

"Ignoring everything else completely wrong with this situation, this is still a scientific breakthrough being completely and totally hidden. There's aliens. There's an alien ship in your barn! This is -" Melanie's face screws up, and she doesn't have to say anything. It was going to be her breakthrough story. She was going to be recognized and adored and taken seriously as a journalist after this story, the one where a comet fell into his backyard. And he fucked up. He knows. She doesn't have to say it. 

"We won't say anything," Sasha says, putting one hand over Melanie's fist and the other over Martin's hand. "We promise."

"Thank you, Sasha. I - I'm sorry for missing movie night." 

She finally meets his eyes, looking up and smiling. "It's okay. Just come next week, and we'll call it even."

"Okay."

* * *

Melanie is visibly unhappy to be dragged away - Martin knows she has more questions, and isn't the sort of person to be torn away from something she feels is worth investigating, but Sasha is eager to go (which he feels awful about, by the way). 

He tells them they can come back and see Jon (which Melanie scoffs at, and Sasha just smiled at the ground) but not today.

He's pretty sure they won't tell anyone. Not that they couldn't, but he at least bought himself some time by asking them not to, he thinks. Bought time for what, he isn't sure yet, but after earlier he is a hundred percent sure he's not letting anyone touch Jon that has any intention to hurt it. 

He takes his time going back to the barn, though. It's like if he goes in there, he's going to have to let his instincts to comfort and hold Jon and his instincts to never under any circumstances touch something that looks like that fight out, and honestly? He's not especially keen on seeing which one wins. He takes the two untouched mugs of tea off the table and sighs, heading for the barn with one in each hand anyways.

Martin doesn't miss the way Jon shrinks back when he opens the door. "I'm sorry," he says, walking to the back and pushing the milk crate back over with his foot. He holds a mug of the tea out. "Here. I know you can't - I know you can't drink it, but sometimes it makes me feel better just to hold it for a bit." 

Jon reaches out to hold it with two tentacles and just dip the tip of another in it, swirling it around and watching the settled tea and milk mix into a lighter shade. Martin barely notices as Jon uses a couple more tentacles to hold out the earbuds thing, again. 

"Is it going to just make a horrible noise again?" Three blinks, and a kind of wryly amused look. "You don't even know. Thanks," he says, but captures his tea between his knees so he can use both hands to stick them in his ears. "Well, good so far." There isn't any noise coming from them at all, actually. 

Jon turns his full attention on to Martin, and the tentacle in the cup abruptly stops stirring. 

"Well then, can you - can you hear me?" The voice comes through the headphones, posh and nervous and just a little bit rumble-y. His mouth drops, and there's no more words for a moment. "Oh," the voice sounds disappointed. "If that didn't work, I'm not sure what to try."

"I - Jon? Is that you talking to me?"

"Yes." The voice says. "Yes, Martin. You can hear me?"

"Yeah - uhm...Did you build this? So I could hear you?"

"Well I could hardly just keep giving you binary answers. You're not hurt?"

The worry in the voice - Jon's voice, _holy fucking cow_ \- is completely evident. Good translator. Uhm, nice voice. "No? Hurt. Why would I be hurt?"

"The rest of your species is hostile?"

The rest of his species is - the rest of - Martin starts laughing. Her can't help it. The tea nearly sloshes into his laughter with the way she's shaking, laughing but he couldn't care less. "I'm sorry if I gave you that impression, but no. The rest of my species isn't hostile. Melanie is - Melanie _can_ be hostile, but she really just wants the best for everyone and you just scared her."

"Oh, and the other one? The one that lives in the house?"

Hostile isn't the word he'd use for his mum, either. "She's sick," he decides on saying. "I don't want anyone to wake her."

"I've been rather foolish, then. I thought I'd just happened to crash land by one of the few of you that wouldn't want I kill me. Ah - thank you. For saving me. That probably should have been the first thing I said, but I'm not very good at this."

"You're very welcome. Uhm, thank you for being such a good houseguest? And for this, " he holds up the cord attached to the translator. 

Jon sways and shuffles like he's nervous or uneasy, or maybe that's just the lack of bones. "It - Well, it was rather selfish. I can't imagine living the rest of my life here without having someone to talk to."

"So you're really stuck?" 

"Yes. This thing wasn't meant to fly, anyways. It's a stasis pod. I just thought maybe I could modify it enough - But I'll stay out of your way, of course. Or I can leave."

"I don't want you to leave. I mean - You can, but you're not the only one tight for company. Besides, it isn't really safe out there, you know?"

"Right. Umm - thank you for the - the tea, Martin. I didn't say that, either. Can I - can we go inside?"


	9. Act I: Part 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allergy medicine historically kind of screws me up, so if any of this doesn't make sense, I'll change it after I wake up from the benadryl hellscape

Speaking just makes Jon seem more human. Or rather, Martin being able to understand him when he speaks, that is. Of course, that doesn't exactly belongs weird it feels when he does something like use all it's tentacles to pull himself up on to the bed to sit(?) next to him, but it does help. 

"Okay," Jon says, blinking once and flopping down flat next to him. Martin leans back, too, careful not to lay on any tentacles. "I would very much like to know more about you, if that's alright? And other things with your species. It's - Its probably going to sound like a stupid question, but..."

"Go ahead. I know I already asked you a bunch of questions, and it probably isn't stupid from your perspective."

"Are you - is your given name Martin, or is your species called Martin?" 

Admittedly it's a little hard not to laugh at that, but only because he can see where that particular misunderstanding happened. "My given name is Martin. We're called humans."

"Oh. Yes, okay. I'm uhm...I suppose we're called Watchers. But I don't think my name will come though the translator right. And - I very much like Jon."

"It suits you," Martin nods. "Do you communicate in ways other than verbally? Is that why it's hard to put through the translator."

Jon does a little excited bob. "Yes. We've gotten a lot more verbal in order to communicate with other species, but naturally we send out to electrical impulses to convey things. So about half my name would simply be abstract concepts to you, if you could pick up on it at all." 

"Really?" That's fascinating. Beyond fascinating, even. He's not even sure how that would work, but he's not a scientist or anything. "Do you do it consciously or does it just happen, like with your thoughts and stuff?"

"Consciously, but it's like the way your voice changes when you speak and I can infer things...Ah, what's that called?"

"Intonation, I think." 

Jon blinks twice, before apparently remembering he doesn't have to, anymore. "Right," he days. "It's like that." 

"And there are other alien species?" (Which only decided to hit him now). "Are they more like humans?"

There is a long silence, and Martin is left to wonder if he said something wrong. "Yes." Jon says, slowly. All his eyes shut. " I'm - _huh_." 

Yes, there's definitely something wrong. Martin takes one of Jon's tentacles lightly in his hand. None of his eyes open. "Jon?"

"Hm?"

"You can tell me, if somethings wrong. I'm not - I like to listen." 

"I'm the last of my species." He says. "It should bother me. I meam, it does, but not really. Not as much as it ought to."

Oh. Well that was a bombshell, wasn't it? Martin prided himself at being good at comfort, and reading people, and knowing what exactly they needed, but this was...Huh. He felt helpless, and not even sure what to say to start, and that was...Martin hated that. 

"I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. It might take some time to settle in, all the way, and then you might feel worse."

"I do want to tell you. I _will_ tell you, it's just -" Outside the headphones he hears a long moan, but nothing through the translator. "I really haven't known you that long, yet and it's a lot to drop on an acquaintance."

"I understand," he says. He wouldn't drop all. of his personal.problems in Jon right off, either. He guessed he'll have to explain about his mother eventually, since they're living in the same house. "Besides, I can't really fix anything. And I doubt I'd understand very well, the biggest thing I have to worry about is making sure I can pay the bills every month. So I couldn't really help. At least, not permanently" Martin says. "But I think I have something that might take your mind off of it, it you want?" 


	10. Act I: Part 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you guys ever played Octodad: Dadliest Catch? That's what Jon moves like, and I'm super disappointed it's taken me this long to realize it.

Martin had led him back outside and to the side of the house by the garage. Jon has since flattened most of his buddy to the ground to get a good look at Martin's idea of a distraction. 

The getting a better look is very clearly an excuse to basically wrap himself around the cat and her four kittens that are wobbling around in the grass outside the garage. "What are these called?"

"Cats," Martin says. He can't stop smiling at the way Jon sort of encircles them and keeps gently prodding the kittens back towards their mother if they go too far. "Do you like them?" 

"Yes. I've - I've never seen anything like them. And they're tame?"

"Uh, sort of? She's a farm cat, so she just goes where she likes and keeps mice out of the garden and the neighbors fields, but some people keep them as pets in the house."

"Why don't you?"

He sighs at that without really thinking about it. "Mum doesn't really like animals. Too much work, I guess? Too messy. I had a dog until I was six, but he was my dad's before that and was already pretty old."

A couple of Jon's eyes turn to Martin and squint at the same time he's petting the orange kitten. It's terribly intimidating. "Forgive me if I'm completely off - but you _are_ an adult as far as your species goes, right?"

"Uhm." He doesn't like where this is going. "Yes? I'm twenty-eight."

"That means absolutely nothing to me. What I mean is, you seem to have most of the responsibility in your home, so if you wanted a cat or...whatever the other one you said was, what's stopping you now?" His eyes narrow even more. "I wish I had a house, so I could have one."

You know what? What is stopping him, right? Mum doesn't have to take care of it. One of them could be an inside cat. Part his. And then he could watch Jon with it like right now, because quite frankly that'd probably be the highlight of his day, every day.

"Georgie gets first pick of the litter since they're her cats babies, too but you can have second pick? You'll have to keep it in the house, so it didn't get picked up by a predator or something." 

"More of them?" Of course that's all Jon gets out of that. "Can I see Georgie's cat?"

"Uhm," Martin says, because that's long term, too. "Maybe? I guess we could ask Melanie to ask her?"

"Melanie...Is that the scary one?"

"Yeah. She's Georgie's girlfriend. She just needs some time to get used to the idea of you, I guess. She wanted to write a news article on you, and I sort of told her she couldn't?"

The eyes all train down on to the grass. "Oh. Well. Thank you, Martin. I suspect that wouldn't have ended well for me. You'd let me bring one in the house?" 

He nods. "Sure. In a couple of weeks, when they're big enough." Maybe he's wrong, but Martin thinks that is Jon could be smiling right now he would be. 

They lounge there out on the lawn for a while, which is very nice, but the kittens had all fallen asleep on their mother a while ago, and Martin's stomach rumbles. "I'm going to make lunch," he says. "But if you want to stay out here or go in the barn or whatever, that'd be okay with me."

"I think I'd like to watch you make lunch, if that's alright? I don't eat, as such but I could talk to you while you work. And - And maybe... I know I can't drink it, but if it isn't too much trouble, could I have another cup of tea? It was nice and warm."

"Sure you can." Martin says. His heart skips a beat there, but he promptly pushes any response to that down. It's just cute, that Jon likes such cozy things, like laying on his bed, and cats, and tea, and poetry. That's all. And if that's everything Jon needs him for? All the better, since those are things Martin couldn't possibly fail to provide.

He cuts up tomatoes for sandwiches and microwaves precooked bacon, and Jon hovers over his shoulder and stretches up to see every action. Jon gets some more tea, and he carefully takes the mug in two tentacles and wobbles over (resembling one of the kittens) to the table. Martin pulls him out a chair and scoots him back in. "Don't burn yourself," he warns. "I'm going to bring my mum lunch, I'll be right back."

She immediately turns over to face the wall when he comes in, and her breakfast is still cold, so just must be doing bad again. He decides that at this moment it's probably best to just leave her lunch and not say anything. He does end up drawing the curtains back so not as much light comes into the room. 

He eats much in mostly-silence, watching Jon swirl around the tea in the cup. "Your mother is...She's very quiet." Jon starts. 

"I don't want to talk about it right now." That seems to stifle lunch conversation, but he's not going to. 

He has to take out the earbuds to do dishes and leaves the translator on the table next to Jon.

It's a good thing the kitchen window faces the front of the house, where the dirt road passes. It's an even better thing that the crocheted lace curtains are pulled back, so he can see the vehicle pulling up by the lilacs. 

"Jon," he says, not turning from the window. "Would you go upstairs, please? And lock the door. The lock is on the door handle, you just run it until it's vertical. I'll come get you when it's okay to come out." 

He hears the soft _plop-plop-plop_ up the stairs and takes a deep breath, taking his time walking to the front door. They'd - They'd promised, Melanie and Sasha. That they wouldn't tell. Someone had, though. There was no other reason for them to be here. 

He waits until he hears the knock on the door to open it. There are two figures, one larger and one smaller, the former wrapped up in a heavy navy blue wool coat despite the warm spring air, and the latter wearing a waistcoat and dress shirt. "Hello Martin," the smaller one says. "Might we come in?"


	11. Act I: Part 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks, two things! One, I love you guys and you're all awesome, I'm so glad to hear from you in the comments so thank you for all of them! They're honestly getting a little hard to keep up with, so if I don't reply right away, just know that I've seen it and probably cried over it for a good ten minutes. 
> 
> Two is, check out [this excellent art](https://www.instagram.com/p/B-01TffDKeJ/?igshid=7f4qb107tdxi) by jaysdraws13 on Instagram! It's so good!! I'm so in love!!

Martin has an entire crisis, standing in the front doorway.

What is he afraid of? A little bit of gossip? He's dealt with that his whole life anyways, with his mum and dad, and everything. It's not like they're going to say, "Oh, that Martin Blackwood, he's probably got an eldritch abomination in his attic, you know."

Except he does! That's exactly it. But he can't not invite them in, right? That's not...they drove all the way out here, and it'll be more suspicious if he turns them away. "I - Sure. Come right in. Just, could we keep it a little quiet? My mum's had a rough couple of days and she's sleeping right now."

He ushers in the two men. Elias Bouchard and Peter Bouchard (nee Lukas. Or maybe Lukas right now, were they off or on right now, Martin could never keep up) make themselves at home in the living room, Elias easier than Peter, who shuffles sort of awkwardly until Elias sits and then just follows Elias's lead. 

It's then that Martin notices the translator on the kitchen table, easily visible through the archway to the living room. He can't exactly wander off and get it, so he puts on a smile. "Can I get either of you two anything? Tea, biscuits?"

"We're fine, thank you Martin," Elias says, at the same time Peter says, "Tea, if you wouldn't mind?" And if they weren't off before the look Elias gives Peter clues him into the fact that they will be, soon. 

"We're fine," Elias says again. "This really should take long. Will you sit?"

"Sure." Martin says, smile pulled right across his face as he sits stiffly on the chair across from the couch and tries to breath evenly. "How are you two? It's been a while -"

"Martin," Elias interrupts. "I really don't have time for the small talk today. Will you please explain to me why you're trying to hide it?"

He physically feels the blood rush from his face. "Sorry, what?"

"This is a delicate situation, I understand but is it the utmost importance that you are upfront with me about the extraterrestrial that landed on your property the night before last. I know we don't see eye-to-eye on everything but surely you can understand that you can't hide it forever."

"I don't know what Melanie told you, but this is just ridiculous. You can't honestly think I'm hiding a - an alien!" He turns to Peter. Peter Lukas is...He knew Martin's father, but unlike Martin's father, he hadn't run off. Martin wouldn't exactly call Peter paternal, but at least he was willing to help sometimes. He seemed to like Martin as much as he liked anyone (which wasn't saying much). "You came down here for this? Seriously? Why'd you drive him down here, Peter?"

Peter shrugs, drapes an arm into the cushion behind where Elias sits. "Wanted to see if Margaret finally lost it."

"Ms. King didn't call me." Elias says. "Your mother did."

Anger flashes like lightening in him. Hehe can't even trust him with this one thing? She can't even ask what happened, or why Jon's here? He would have told her, if she'd said she'd seen him. He would have - ugh! Maybe he deserves the rest of this. He probably does, but for her to go behind his back and call Elias to tell on him like they're eight? That? That he does not deserve from his own fucking mother.

"Get out of my house," the even tone is very much gone, now. He stands up, draws himself to his full height which he hates doing because it looks like him and everyone says so and she hates that, but he couldn't possibly care less at the moment. "Get. Out."

Elias doesn't look impressed. In fact, he just rolls his eyes and makes a point of settling back down on to the couch a little more. "Don't be stupid. I don't care what issues you're having with your mother. Let me see it, and then I'll go. And grab whatever that is off the table for me, if you don't mind?"

More blood rushes to his face, and he's halfway through deliberating if Daisy would come to his aid if he broke Elias's nose, when the door upstairs opens, and somehow his whole body gets even tighter. Jon has stretched himself as upright as his body will allow and closed most of his eyes. He moves with a sort of wobbly dignity, still Jon-ish but he's not moving as comfortably or carelessly as he has before. He's trying to look scary, Martin decides. Or unfrightened, or something. 

Elias's mouth is hung upen, just a hair. That should make him happy, Elias having a reaction to something that isn't just smug indifference, but anger is still reverberating in him. "I told you to stay upstairs! I could have handled this."

Jon cradles the translator and pulls himself into the living room to deposit it into Martin's hands. Peter is sitting the edge of his seat, now and Elias hasn't recovered. Martin puts one of the earbuds in. 

"They weren't going away," he says. "It's alright. They won't hurt me. You won't let them. I couldn't be a secret forever, I suppose." 

The anger dissolves at that, mostly. "I just thought we had more time. I don't want you to go be taken away."

"You won't let that happen," Jon repeats. "And if I have a say in the matter, nor will I. Asks him what exactly he wants from me, please?" 

Martin does.

Elias's mouth promptly closes and then opens again. "To understand you. To know about where you came from, and what you've seen." There's a fire in his eyes that nearly scares, Martin, but he lets him keep going. "To know you, in the purest sense of the word." When Martin doesn't relay it back, Elias looks at him. "Well?"

Jon takes the translator from Martin and shoved it at Elias, less gently than he had with the former. "Put it in," Martin says, and he does.

When Jon speaks without the translator, all he can hear is a series of soft whistling times interspersed with the quieter or the moaning noises. He sees Elias nod. "Of course not. It's remarkably hard to learn things about an intelligent being when it's been vivisected, as you might imagine. I have no intentions of doing anything today other than a brief physical examination and some questions, if you're open to the idea."

More noises from Jon, and Elias's dart to Martin and back. "That's entirely up to our dear mister Blackwood. How _can_ you understand me, by the way?"


	12. Act I: Part 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like this chapter! Have it anyways. Jon lore

Martin tries not to hate anyone. He _really_ does. No one deserves to be actually hated. But Elias just makes himself so hard to like. 

Everyone's got good qualities. But if he were told to list Elias's or die, he might not be able to think of any, still. 

But Jon wants him close, to be able to stop Elias if he does anything, so Martin and him are basically ear to ear, each with an earbud in as Jon's sort of flat on the coffee table, letting Elias poke and prod at him. "I'll have to find somebody to make another of these," Elias says while examining a tentacle. Martin can't see him gritting his teeth, but he can hear it. "Because this simply _won't_ do. Martin, hold the light a little higher."

Oh yeah, and he's doing that. 

"Oh, fascinating," Elias says at something else, the gazillionth time in as many moments. "What do you secrete?" 

"Uh," Jon says. He doesn't sound especially uncomfortable, actually. A couple times he's almost sounded happy at explaining bits of himself. "I'm not sure exactly what it's composition is, but it's purpose is to keep all of me from drying out. The same can be released from the ducts near my eyes, but in larger portions for a smaller amount of time." 

"Like...Like the other day?" Martin asks.

"R - Right."

Elias nods and lifts another tentacle, and Martin adjusts the light. "Ask it how it eats," Peter calls from the sofa. 

"I don't eat, as such," Jon tells them. "For energy production I take the brainwaves of things around me and convert them into energy to move. I - I don't know exactly how that works beyond a basic level, either. I most certainly didn't study biology beyond what was absolutely required as a child."

Martin's brain short-circuits there, for a moment. "You eat brainwaves," he says flatly.

"Yes? None of the species on this planet do that?"

"Can it be detrimental to the life form you do it to?"

"No, of course not. You're - you're done with them, and it isn't like I can understand any of them!" 

They leave it at that. Martin because that's a sort of weirdly terrifying answer, and Elias probably because Jon doesn't know any more about it, so Elias can't harness this power to use for his own gain. Elias relays the answer to his question back to Peter, who has a rare moment of looking genuinely surprised before being back to his usual unaffected self.

Elias moves to the next one, and Jon pulls away. "That one is...Please don't touch that one. It's so I can feel where I'm going and as such it's rather sensitive."

That one doesn't have any eyes on it. Martin hadn't noticed, before. "You can't see, with all your eyes, on to the floor?"

"Not down onto the ground I can't! In fact, are you telling me you use your eyes to focus on the ground?"

"So I don't fall? Yeah, Jon, I do!"

"But there are so many other things to look at!" He sounds like he's panicking a little, eyes flicking around the room. "You're so _weird_."

Elias laughs at that, actually laughs. "You do understand how strange that sounds to us, don't you?"

"I suppose so, and I don't mean to be rude, it's just..."

"It's okay," Martin says. "We know you don't. It's weird for everyone. Still acceptable levels of weird though?" Jon blinks at him twice, and Martin smiles at him and lets Elias continue his explorations. "So, Elias? What exactly is your long term plan here?"

"Write a paper," he says absently. "Move somewhere respectable. Publish more papers, be given awards. The usual." 

"I don't want to move," Says Peter.

"I never said you had to come with, did I?"

He's met with a loud scoff from Peter but with no further argument. "What if I don't want you to publish anything about me? What if I intend to stay anonymous?"

Elias rolls his eyes, and gestures with his free hand for Martin to move the flashlight down. He does, but slowly, and spitefully. "You're going to be found out sooner or later. Besides, I don't exactly think you're in a position to do anything about it."

"I am _trying_ to be civil about this -"

"As am I. You will be exposed, and when you are, it will be best if you have someone on your side with influence."

There's a beat of silence, and all of Jon's eyes flick to Martin. "Martin, take of the translator. Take Peter make yourselves some tea, alright? This will only take a moment."

"Y - Yeah, okay." (He trusts Jon, he trusts Jon, he tru -) "Come in the kitchen, Peter and I'll make you tea you wanted." He isn't thirsty, even though his mouth feels dry and swollen. Half of Martin thinks Jon's going to kill him, somehow. The other half has been Jon, and doesn't know if he can, even. 

Peter leans against the countertop, out of view of the living room, and Martin fusses with the plug on the electric kettle. The soft muttering of Elias is barely-there in the other room. "So."

"So?"

He shrugs. "I'm not sure. It's all just very strange, isn't it? Really came up here thinkin' your mum had finally lost it."

His grip on the mug handles tightens until his fingers go pale. "Oh God. What am I even going to say to her? After she wouldn't even talk to me first about it?"

The question isn't to Peter, but the hulking man hums impossibly quietly anyways. "She's trying to get you to kick her out."

That's probably true. " I just don't understand why she can't let me take care of her!" He fumes. He'd only tell this to Peter, probably because Peter doesn't care, but Peter also knows his mum, knew his dad. "I don't do a bad job! I know I'm not doing a bad job, and she says she's fine, and comfortable, and -" Martin slams the mug down on the counter a little harder than necessary and some of the raspberry and rosehip tea splashes into the counter. "Sorry."

"S'fine," Peter says, sliding the mug over to himself and sipping at it. 

They sort of amble back to the living room, where Jon still sits goon the coffee table, but Elias has gone a while shade paler and is adjusting his previously rolled-up short sleeves. 

"You're not - You're done?" Martin asks. 

"Not even close," Elias says, although all pretense is dropped. He just looks tired. "But I'll come back another day, when Jon is...Better settled. Come on, Peter. Put the cup down."

Peter pouts, but for once Elias doesn't give in. Peter hands him the mug and gives him a brief pat on the head before Elias ushers him out the door. 

Martin is left blankly staring towards the door. And Jon comes up beside him and plucks the cup out of his hand, replacing it with the translator. "If you're not going to - I could use it. The tea, I mean." He says as soon as Martin gets an earbud in. That was - I didn't _want_ to do that."

He's terrified to ask. "And what was that, exactly?"

"I also can secrete - Its truth serum," he says, slight with in his tone. "You secrete it, ask a question, get an answer. Thankfully it works on your type, or I'm not certain what I would have done. But he certainly won't be publishing papers anytime soon."

"Oh." Jon blackmailed Elias. That was a step up from what Martin was going to do to him, and he tells Jon as much. 

"Well it if had known _that_ ," he says. "Oh, don't worry about touching me now, though. It dries very quickly, only enough for a question or two, it you're quick." 

"Oh," He says again. "Is that your way of saying you want me to like...Hold your tentacle or something?"

Jon doesn't say anything for a minute and Martin has a panic. That was such a weird thing to say, why did he say that?! Then Jon says, "Sorry, sorry. That was - that was really funny."

"So funny you forgot to laugh?"

"Laugh? Is that one of those weird sounds you make? What has that got to do with finding anything funny?"

He could probably deal with mum, now. But he's not even sure what he'd say. He'd much rather sit on the couch and watch Jon nervously swirl a tentacle into his tea until it got cold, and try to explain what a laugh was and why it has everything to do with finding something funny.


	13. Act I: Part 12

Jon had told him he wanted to see the whole farm, and had decided the best way to do that was to climb.

"Please, please be careful!" Martin pleads. "I don't even know what I'd do if you fell down and hurt yourself!"

"You did fine last time," Jon tells him good-naturedly from halfway up the lilac bush, but to be fair, Martin's panic isn't exactly unfounded, since it was just two days ago he learned Jon didn't bother to look at the ground where he was walking. Maybe it's different, climbing trees. Martin really, really hopes so.

Martin works at spreading the blanket on the grass while trying to keep an eye on Jon while he climbs, but ends up just staring again. "If you fall, I'm going to be incredibly upset with you," he says.

"I'm not going to fall, Martin, really. It isn't as though I've never climbed anything before."

"Sorry, you just seem...is it rude to say you seem slippery?"

Jon doesn't answer for a moment, just wrestles against a particularly springy branch and pulls him up a little further. "Sorry, slippery? I'm not slippery."

Martin flushes, and starts digging through the basket that holds his lunch without really looking. "You look slippery, though. You don't have any...I don't know, grip!"

"I don't need grip, I'm doing just fine, see?" Jon wiggles one of his tentacles out, which ends up being the wrong move, since he's still holding on to the thin branch. Martin has barely enough time to throw himself forward and stretch out his arms, and suddenly he's got an armful of Jon. 

It's not nearly as upsetting as it was the first time. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite. All of Jon's eyes blink up at him for a few moments, and he finds he isn't sure which ones to look at when they're all trained on him. "Uhm. I told you to be careful."

"Right. I'll - I think I'm going to stay on the ground, from now on, so I suppose that won't be a problem. Thank - Thank you for catching me."

"Oh. You're welcome. Want to come sit down now?" 

"Yes. I'm going to go see the kittens after lunch."

Of course he is. Martin knows he's second favorite to the cats, but that's okay. They are pretty cute, after all, and now there's just a little bit less sleeping and a little more playing from them. Definitely too small to take in the house, but Jon is definitely counting down the days. "Have you thought of a name yet?"

"I don't know that many human names. Or cat names. Can I borrow the names book again, maybe?"

He has flashbacks to the afternoon of endless name reading. Not for the first time, he laments the lack of internet so he can just pull up a text-to-speech thing at the very least. "Uh - sure."

"Ah, thank you. I think my translator has a good enough hold on English now that I should be able to pick one out myself."

"So you won't need me to read them out for you?"

"There might be one or two, but I think I'll be okay."

Oh thank god. "Wait, your translator learns English from me talking to you?" Jon bobs, before flopping flat onto the blanket. Martin pulls out his sandwich and starts unwrapping it. "Huh. Well, I guess we're lucky you didn't learn to talk from Tim or something, you'd just talk in memes."

"I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, but I'm fairly certain that's not how it works. I have my own speech patterns, they're just influenced by what words and parts of speech I know."

Still, he'd probably sound pretty different if someone other than Martin was his one point of human contact. "Well, I'm definitely not the most eloquent or anything, but I'm glad you at least met someone who could speak it passably, so you didn't learn it wrong."

One of Jon's tentacles, (the eyeless one, actually) gently pays Martin's knee before retreating back into the shapeless form of him. "I - I'm glad it's you too, Martin." He's almost certain Jon's not talking about the translator, anymore. 


	14. Act I: Part 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one week? Yes. It's entirely to make you mad. I dropped 2 (2!!) Characters in a rp to bring you this more chapters of this per week! Because it's the spaghetti jon content I crave

He's not looking forward to this. 

Martin has to drive his mother to the doctors office in town about once every week, and to the bigger office in the city about twice a month. Driving her means at there's the perfect opening to talk to her, and a feeling of dread and anxiety has settled on him like a heavy weight. 

Today's the latter, and so it's going to be an hour drive both ways.

It's not usually so bad. Well, it is. He'll try to make conversation and best case scenario she just berates him a bit, or she just ignored him. Worst case scenario she tries to take the bus back to town from the doctors office and hitch a ride back home from there. That had only worked once. It was not going to work again. 

It takes some coaxing to get her out of bed, and by then he's already running out of time before they have to leave. So she's not dressed and he just pulls a nice-ish jumper over his least dirty t-shirt and jeans and runs a hand through his hair until it looks purposefully messy and not just regular messy. 

Jon's upstairs, and he almost forgets to tell him before he's halfway out the door. They'd decided he's tall to her about him before there were any formal introductions or Jon just wandering around the house at the same time as her yet.

"Peter and Elias's phone number is the first one in the refrigerator," he says. "You don't need me to go over it again?"

"Martin, do you recall that I know how to fly a spacecraft?" Jon asks flatly, just a hint of amusement coming through. Martin flushes anyways and nods. "Then you'll forgive me if a telephone seems a little underwhelming."

"Right. Right, sorry. And Sasha's is the second number, if you don't want to deal with those two."

"Doesn't she - isn't she scared? Of me?"

"If the translator hooked up to the phone really works, and it's an emergency, I think she'll come around. She's reasonable, and I was going to ease her into th idea, you know, but -"

"Aren't you going to be late?" Jon blinks. 

"Oh, right. Got to go, see you later!"

* * *

The car ride is an excruciating level of silence as he tries to figure out what to say. She states out the passenger side window and doesn't say anything at all to him.

"Mum," he decides on, finally. "You know if you've got a problem, you can come to me, right? You always can." Not that she will, but he's there, really. Even if she doesn't want to be in the house with him, and hated him like she says she does, sometimes, when she thinks he can't hear. It's not her fault, really. It isn't, and he knows that, it's just...

"I don't need to hear it," she says flatly, at first but then her voice raises and raises and Martin wants to shrink in on himself into a tiny little ball that no one can see or hear, but she just keeps going, and he has to keep his eyes on the road and his hands firmly on the wheel with a grip that's probably downright unhealthy in its tightness. "I don't need to hear that, not from you. I saw that thing in the kitchen, walking around like it owned the place, and I thought I'd finally snapped, and I was fine with it. Because that meant my son wasn't actually fucking stupid enough to bring something that looked like that into my goddamned house!"

The anger isn't back. Not in full, at least, but he's more than a little upset on Jon's behalf. "Jon isn't an 'it'. And he's staying."

He says the last bit with such finality that he's sure that he hasn't left any room for her to argue. Martin is wrong. "You're out of your mind if you think I'm letting it stay. Bouchard can take it and dissect it, for all I care."

That hurts, but it's enough to give Martin the strength to interrupt her.

"No it's -" Martin sighs. "Just let me talk. And listen! This is - It's important. He's staying. He's staying, and you don't get to say no, because he's part of the family now."

Its silent for much too long.

"The strays thing was cute, when you were little," she says in a soft voice that somehow outrank the yelling in terms of general awfulness. "You used to being baby birds in the house after they'd fallen out of the nest, even when it was hopeless, or they were already dead. Now it's just sad. Do you ever wonder why you like to pick up strays so much, Martin?" He doesn't answer. It doesn't help. "You're a stray, Martin. Nobody wants you. Anyone who's still around just hasn't realized that it's hopeless, yet."


	15. Act I: Part 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight update with chapter titles! Not too important at the moment but! We are almost done with act I...

"You're not sad about not being able to go back up there?" Martin asks, a little louder than is strictly necessary. Jon's taken up sleeping in the bathtub with a couple blankets and pillows. He says it's comfortable because it's enclosed, but Martin's honestly not sure if Jon's just humoring him or not.

Either way, they leave the bathroom door open and then they can talk until they want to, and Martin can just go downstairs if he actually has to use the bathroom. Although, he's lived in this house forever, and it's been proven time and time again that fumbling down the stairs in the dark while half asleep can only really go badly. 

"No." Jon says. "I didn't really have anyone. Well, I did? But things weren't exactly going well."

"You don't have to tell me," Martin says. "I just - If I had to leave earth forever, I'd be - I dunno. I didn't even know there was anything else out there before you, and even know I'm not exactly equipped to survive in an alien civilisation. And not to mention that there are definitely things I do tell you, and that's - that's okay."

His mother. He's talking about his mother. That wasn't - it wasn't a point of contention between them, not really. He'd just came back from her doctors appointment last week and shut himself in the barn for a while, and cried, and that was okay. She didn't really mean the things she said, and it wasn't as if she was wrong about most of them.

Jon hadn't - well, he'd asked if he could talk to her with intentions that came through very clearly even over a translator, and Martin had very quietly told him that Martin would rather if he didn't, and Jon had just very kindly stuck a toilet paper roll over a tentacle hand held it out so Martin could have a tissue that wasn't covered in straw.

And so Jon thinks roughly the same things about his mother that a lot of the people that know her well think of her, and that isn't really fair, it entirely.

But - But Martin's glad he's got someone in the house looking out for him so closely, even if he doesn't _need_ to. It's...nice.

"I think it ought to be documented. I - I'm the last one and so I suppose it'll have to be me that does it, but I've never been all that good at talking about things."

"Then not right now. And not all at once, maybe?"

"Yes," Jon says. "I think that's for the best."

* * *

_"Bring Jon,"_ Melanie tells Martin over the phone after his third missed movie night since Jon's come along. _"I mean, he can't be that bad, he basically made Elias cry."_

"He did _not_! How do you know about that?"

_"Peter's better for the gossip than you'd expect him to be."_

"You talk to Peter?"

 _"When I know it'll make him uncomfortable. Just - c'mon. It'll be cool. We'll get - damn, what's a good shitty alien movie?"_ When Martin doesn't answer he hears the distant, _"Sasha, what's a shitty alien movie we should watch?"_

Martin is trying not to cry into the phone, and he throws his head back. Jon stops pretending he's looking at the book he's cradling in his tentacles and sayings at Martin.

"We're watching 'Mac and Me'," Melanie says. "Bring your alien, or I'm gonna drive everyone to your house afterwards to see him anyways. Gotta go, Michaels looking at me with the get back to work look, again!"

* * *

He asks Jon if he wants to go at all. It ought to be his decision, after all, right? Even if Martin himself isn't all that sure about it, Melanie is one to make good on her threats, especially if Sasha decides to back her up.

Jon seems to think on it for a good minute. "Yes, I think I'd like that. Will - How exactly do I make it clear that I'm not going to hurt anyone? I just - after the first time..." 

Yeah. Yeah, that wasn't exactly a great introduction to Martin's friends, was it. He considers the problem for a moment. "I'm not sure there's anything to to, exactly. Unless there's some way to make it so they can all hear you instead of having to use the translator." 

"Oh," Jon blinks. "That's a very good idea, Martin. Do you have a speaker, maybe?" 

"Uh, I might have an old CD player, but that might be a challenge to lug around." 

"I can take out the parts I need, thank you. That should make it easier for you, too so you don't feel as though you have to wear headphones all day." 

"I don't wear them all day!"

"You've fallen asleep with them in two nights in a row this week." 

Okay, that was true. But they were talking! He didn't want to take them off in the middle of a conversation (he did fall asleep on the middle of the conversation, though, which was arguably worse, but Jon didn't seem to mind). But he was right, they were uncomfortable. Maybe mum would be able to hear him from her room, now and wouldn't be actively avoiding leaving it, like she clearly had been. 

"I like talking to you," Martin huffs in a way he hopes makes it clear he isn't actually offended. 

"Yes," Jon says. "I like talking to you, too. But someone ought to remind you to take care of yourself, sometimes, even if it's something as silly as not leaving headphones in."

"Bold of you to say, you haven't even got ears." 

There's silence, but Martin's pretty sure it's the kind of silence where Jon's laughing. "Would you like to go in the barn with me while I work on it? I do he very good company of course, without you being able to understand me, but err -"

"Sure! I'll just bring a notebook or something."

And absolutely not write poetry about Jon's eyes, because that would be weird.


	16. Act I: Part 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like, I mean this in the nicest way possible folks but I leave and come back and suddenly this has twice the bookmarks it did before? So again, in the nicest way possible, what the actual fuck
> 
> Also! Wish I had a good excuse for the break but honestly the thing that brought me back to this is TWO of this fics tags were on a Pinterest post and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Watching Jon get in the car is actually really, really funny. And it isn't like Martin hasn't offered to help him. Twice now, actually. So, he doesn't feel all that bad laughing about it. He watches the sun set behind the house while Jon struggles, eventually succeeding at pulling himself into the seat. 

"Okay," Jon says, heaving like he's out of breath. Maybe he is, and the translator just doesn't pick it up. Oh, the speaker works great, and all but it still has the inherent problems of a translation system meant to convey literal meaning and not an actual range of emotion (except when necessary to meaning) or other little verbal quirks. "Ready to go, now."

The car clicks a few times before it starts, of course, and Jon presses himself to the dashboard, listening for the noise boss it starts. "Put your seatbelt on!" Then he remembers the problem with that. The seatbelt was not made for a tentacle creature with eyes everywhere. "Or - no, don't do that, but sit back, okay? I'll just...go slow?" 

"I'll be fine," Jon says, eye-roll nearly audible. "I've gone light-speed steal times without whatever that was, I think I'll likely be alright."

"This is pretty different. We've got gravity, for one thing." 

Jon is just...quiet. It takes Martin a moment to gather what's likely happening. "Are you laughing at me?"

"No. No, of course not. That would be...very rude of me."

"Uh huh, sure would." It's quiet again, and Martin smiles over at Jon. "I uh...Well. I should probably warn you that sometimes humans are mean, but it - it's in a loving way."

"Incredibly counterintuitive of them, but par for the course, it seems like." Jon seems to have figured out people in his limited experience and time better than Martin ever has. Kind of funny, actually.

* * *

The theater's closed on Thurdays, which is why that's movie night. Tim gets everything running again, though. The projector, the popcorn machine, the works. All for them. Himself, Sasha, Melanie, Georgie, Daisy and Basira, and Martin, which sometimes leaves him feeling like the awkward seventh wheel, but he likes it all the same.

The lights in the lobby are on, and Tim and Sasha are sitting with their backs to the door on the countertop. They both swivel their heads when the front doors open, Martin with two of Jon's tentacles looped though his arm.

Sasha's expression momentarily sours for a moment, but to her credit, she pulls it together fast. 

Tim, on the other hand, falls off the counter and lets out the most remarkable string of swear words that Martin had ever heard. 

"Hey! I'd cover his ears, if I could figure out where they were!" Jon responds with silence rather than a little annoyed huff, which means nothing to them but everything to him.

Her still looks a little sick, Tim, he means, but the joke seems to have helped. "So this is...That's..."

"This is Jon. Jon, Tim. And you sort of met Sasha already."

"It's lovely to meet you both," Jon says, bobbing up and down in what has to be a parody of a polite nod. He nearly seems like he means it, too. Of course, he could be nervous or offended and Martin wouldn't be able to tell, but body language wise, he seems okay.

"So did you teach him English or did Elias?"

"I'm right here," Jon scoffs at Tim. "Universal translator. It picked up your language rather quickly through immersion."

So Tim swears in what sounds like three _other_ langauges, and Jon shifts from side to side. The volume on the translator goes down a couple levels, like he's whispering. "What did he say?"

"Uhh..." Martin says, glaring at Tim. "Don't worry about it. You go find a place to sit, I'm 

"Is there tea?" He asks again, at full volume. Tim and Sasha share a look, like somehow that question is predictable. 

"No, but maybe you could try soda? That might be interesting?" Or disastrous, maybe. 

Jon bobs up and down. "Yes, that sounds wonderful, thank you Martin. I'll - I'll save a spot for you." 

Martin find at him. "Thank you, " he says.

Jon leaves, and Tom gets off the floor and both him and Sasha seem to relax a little. "Geez," Tim says. "No offense, but that's some sci-fi horror shit happening right there."

He's cute! Martin tries not to get too flustered and upset on Jon's behalf. It's just because Tim hasn't seen him with the kittens, or swirling his arm in a cup of tea, or spent long nights having normal conversations with him before falling asleep. 

"It's not," he says, instead of trying to explain it, and tries not to blush unsuccessfully. "This isn't Dead Space, Tim. He's like a person, just a little weird in some ways. I know - I know it's weird at first, but he's smart, and funny, and -"

Tim and Sasha briefly share another look he doesn't understand, and Tim puts both his hands up in surrender. "I'll try, he says. Anybody who's got your vote of confidence has mine, okay?" And then before just him and Sasha, before Martin can even thank him. 

So he starts with soda for Jon - no icecubes, diet coke because this is really the only thing it's any good for, anyways, and waits for Sasha to get done with the popcorn machine.

"You know what I think is interesting?" Sasha asks, scooping up enough popcorn to feed a small army, or just her and Tim.

"Hmm?"

"He can't say your name right."

"What?"

"Jon," She says. "He says _Mahhh-tin,_ with the first part all drawn out. It's kind of adorable."

Oh. Okay, so that's - that's uhm...Martin's not going to think about that, for a little bit. He will process that when he doesn't have to be pretending to be a functional human being. For a moment he just let's himself make faces into the popcorn machine and push it all down.

He doesn't know why, but he sort of expected Jon to sit in the back, by himself. Instead, he's right next to Melanie and Georgie, nearly on the end, partaking in a discussion about cows, of all things. Contrasting Melanie's grin and Georgie's patient but genuine smile with the way Sasha had gone a little grey and Tim had fallen off a counter,.and Martin thinks that this might be not been such a horrible idea after all.

The movie is horrible, and really just a big McDonald's ad, and as usual, just about everyone makes their thoughts on it known. Jon just keeps making these shocked little noises or scoffing, and Martin has to fight not to laugh, so he doesn't have to explain that he isn't laughing at Jon, the noises are just - they're cute. 

They all walk out of the dark theater, and Martin can't help but notice that Jon's got a line full of eyes on him and then the others on Daisy, whom he of course had to ask if she was named after the cow, which Daisy thought was really, really funny. 

Well, as funny as you could tell Daisy thought something was, which still wasn't much, but she actually smiled, so...And they chat, and at walk arm and arm towards the front door while Tim zooms around and refuses to let anyone else help him close up, and Martin's trying not to cry, actually which thankfully no one notices. And then, they freeze, because the building shakes. And that's the last peace and quiet Martin gets for a while.


	17. Act II: Part 1

After the shaking stops, everyone is immediately on alert. Martin doesn't miss the way Daisy's eyes dart around the room, looking for an explanation. Everyone else has the same sort of unease about them.

"Do you think - Couldn't it have been an earthquake?" Martin says, still holding on to Jon, who miraculously didn't fall down during the whole thing. 

It couldn't have been an earthquake. Well, it could have, but something just told him that it wasn't. 

"Let's look outside - see if there's anything damaged out there," Sasha says, and although she sounds uneasy, she's the first person to step outside.

The whole thing is just wrong, somehow, having shifted from a normal evening into something ominous. 

The night is dark, and too silent. He can't here any crickets, or any cars, but he can see the lights.

Five of them, maybe, up in a sky, all in a row.

This shouldn't worry him, after everything. If Jon could show up here and be good, why should he be worried? It worries him nonetheless. Maybe it's because Jon is quaking at his side. Shaking and nervously shifting, in a way unlike his usual thoughtful swaying.

"Jon?" He says. There's no reply, and Martin says his name again.

He doesn't stop shaking, but his eyes flicker up to Martin, and then higher, to the sky. "Listen," he says quietly. That's it. Just, " _Listen_ ".

So Martin does, as the others nervously huddle like penguins and whisper, and Melanie snaps pictures of the sky from every angle. Suddenly there is a _pop_ , like a merely on an old record, and then a _tap, tap,_ like plastic against plastic, and Jon does a full body wince but doesn't stop looking at the sky.

"Is this thing on?" A voice says, from the sky, and it's lilting and light, and wrong, and all of his friends look at Jon and then him, like he's supposed to know what's happening and why. "Oh good. I can tell from your teeny-tiny faces that it is. Yes. That is just the looooveliest sampler of human emotions that I've ever seen in one place, don't you agree? you can't see them, but they agree."

It's Tim that decides to cup his hands up against his mouth and tell at the sky, and somewhere distantly Martin realises that it makes sense.

That it'd be Tim, anways. Nothing about the rest of this makes any kind of sense. "What the hell are you?"

"That wasn't a very nice question!" The voice says. "But I do loooove human names, so you can call me Nikola, if you please."

"That's not what I asked!"

"Then I wasn't answering what you asked! It was time to do introductions anyways. I'm Nikola, and oh! You can't see them, either, but this is Sasha, and Danny, and -" Nikola pauses for a moment. "I don't care if you don't like the names! I'm choosing them! This is Sasha, and Danny. And now it's your turn. Go on!"

The group is quiet, glancing at each other, like if they make a wrong move, they'll be evaporated or something on the spot. Who knows, maybe they will. Basira gets a look on her face for a moment, like she can't believe she's doing this, and points at herself. "I'm Basira," she says. "And that's Daisy, Tim, Martin, Jon, Melanie, Georgie, and uh...Sasha." 

"Oh, how lovely!" It sounds like Nikola is clapping, behind her microphone, but again, it sounds wrong, in the way a studio audience sounds wrong. "Two Sashas! We'll need something to distinguish them! You, you on the ground, we'll call you Not-Sasha! Isn't that an idea?"

"It is certainty an idea," Sasha agrees quietly, nodding just a bit.

"Oh," Nikola says. "Excellent, just excellent! Now that introductions are out of the way, we can get to business. I'm very sorry to have to do this to all of you -" Martin's heart catches in his throat at those words. "But there's been an awful mistake. First contact wasn't supposed to be for - well, doesn't matter much how long it was supposed to be by my count, my count wouldn't matter much to you. But it wasn't scheduled for a long, long while, you see? A couple hundred of your years ago, we were supposed to take care of this little problem, so you humans didn't get hurt. 

"Your...Jon, is that what you called him? Jon - that's cute! That's quaint! He's not just a cute housepet. He's dangerous. So we're - We're going to take him, now!"

Now it's Martin who speaks, well, yells, up at the lights in the sky. "No way! If he wants to stay here, there's nothing to can say that will make me help you get him up there!" This - this Nikola can pry Jon from his cold, dead hands of it wants him so badly. 

"I don't think you understand what I'm saying!"

"I think - I think you can go to hell!" 

His friends cheer, and Jon is silently looking at him, swaying stilled. Martin smiles. Nikola laughs, though, cheap and artificial. "That's okay, Martin! We'll change your mind! You have a lovely week, all of you. We'll be seeing you soon!"


	18. Act II: Part 2

"We're going to figure this out," Martin says again.

"Good enough for me! " Says Tim. "I'm gonna go cower in my home until we know this isn't gonna go all _Signs_ on us."

"I got more _Alf_ than _Signs_ ," Sasha says. Where everyone else looks terrified, she mostly looks unimpressed, which makes Martin confused for a moment, before looking back at Jon. She's had a week. It kind of makes sense.

Georgie looks much the same, but he can see she's ready to dart, with the way she keeps looking back towards their cars. That he does get. Still, she nods and manages to say very calmly. "Definitely more _Explorers_ than _Alien_."

The gratuitous movie references seem to loosen up the mood, a little. It's still tense - or maybe that's just Martin. "So what do we do?" He asks. "What can we do?"

"Well. I think I need to write that article, and then - as much as I hate saying, I think someone's gotta talk to Elias."

Basira shoots Melanie a glare. "You're not seriously suggesting -"

"I am," she says. "And I think, judging by what happened just then, that Martin's with me too, right?"

He nods firmly. 

"Okay. That's settled, then."

"Don't," Jon says. "You can't fight them. It doesn't matter what you do, if we couldn't fight them, then you can't."

The silence is oppressive again, heavy like a bag of ball bearings is being dumped on them, and every single one is full of bad news. "Well - Well maybe it'd better if you told us what you knew about them. Because I'm not just going to let them have you."

"Martin," He says, quietly, and he can imagine that the even tone is mournful, if he tries. "You can't fight them. You can't. I lost - I lost everyone to them. Hell, I don't even remember most of the people we lost to them, I just - you can't go too. None of you can. If you give them me, then maybe they'll leave all of you alone."

And that is...a lot of information that he didn't ever expect to be privy to. Whatever happened to Jon's people, it had to do with - it was them? 

If Jon's species couldn't do anything, how could they?

So what choice do they have? Just let him go? Just take it?

It's a futile argument, going in circles. They're not - or, at least he's not - getting anywhere on this tonight. "Half nine tomorrow," he says, ignoring the way Jon violently wobbles. "You don't have to come, but I'm doing something."

Melanie claps him on the back and shakes his hand enthusiastically. "Let's go _Falling Skies_ on these assholes."

* * *

Jon gets into the car without any obvious complaint, aside from refusing any help. Martin thinks he even tries to slam the door and _harumph_ a little, and Martin respects that, as silly as that happens to come off.

Then they drive in silence, for a while. But Martin can't take it anymore. They have to talk about it eventually.

"I know you don't want me to." He says. "But Jon. I -"

Shit.

He's clamps his mouth shut. Why would he - because it's true. He can't imagine life without Jon. So maybe he's her been *in love* with anyone, but this is as close as it gets, right? He's willing to sacrifice literally everything for Jon. Nevermind that it's selfish, and stupid, and the only reason Melanie's going along with it at all is for the action. And Jon doesn't want him to, and Martin doesn't are about any of it.

He's never gotten to be selfish before. So this is it. It'll probably be the last time, too. 

And Jon's an alien. A mass of writhing black tentacles with eyes, but he thinks warm tea and kittens are the best things since the sci-fi equivalent of sliced-bread, and he's got that little squint he does whenever he's reading (or being read) something he finds particularly interesting, and _fu -_

This just isn't fair.

"I don't want you to die," Jon snaps, and it is definitely a snap, shorter and louder than before. "I don't want to watch as you go _insane_ from the tactics Nikola and her people use. And not to mention that I don't understand why you're so adamant about keeping me around! I have been nothing but a hindrance, and an interruption to -"

"A what?! How can you even say that?"

"It's true, isn't it? Or did you forget the interrogation? The first time Melanie and Sasha came over? The very literal alien invasion? Even you can't possibly be that stupid."

"Stupid? I -" His wide eyes surprise quickly morphs into a frown. "You're trying to make me upset, so I'd let her have you?"

Jon doesn't answer. Martin pulls over and puts his head on the steering wheel. He just sits there for a moment. "How do I make this clear?" He mumbles into his arms.

"Speak up," Jon says, blinking at him. "I can't understand mumbling."

"You're an ass," Martin tells him, sulking a litt le.

"Good," Jon says.

"Just listen. This has been - since you crashlanded in my backyard, I mean - this is the happiest I've ever been. And it's not because you done anything, or you haven't, you've just been there. You've just been Jon. And to go how things were before all that, plus knowing you were with - with Nikola? I'd rather fight. And I'm not a brave person, Jon."

It's quiet again. 

When it seems Jon doesn't have anything to say, Martin starts up the car again and looks straight out the windshield, and keeps driving.

They pass the one lone streetlight on the way out of town, and Martin risks a glance over. Fluid leaks out of every eye on Jon. 

He's crying.


	19. Act II: Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why was this chapter so hard?? Oh yeah! Maybe it's the new job!
> 
> Also uhh...not related at all, but if you're subtly trying to get your cute co-worker to like you, what soda do you buy them? Asking for a friend with anxiety. You know. Who's not panicking over something stupid.

The thing now known as Jon lives on a space station for most of his life. It is a dull gunmetal grey thing, with no low, comforting hum to sink in to. There was somewhere before, he knows. Somewhere bright and warm and far better suited to his species physiology, and his individual quirks. 

He doesn't remember this place all that well, just knows it was Home, before this, and knows it was a spaceship.

He never quite settles into the station (never quite settled anywhere, until there's an alien and a barn and a bathtub and -).

Besides, even with his grandmother and the Eschine woman watching over him day in and day out, nothing about the station feels like 'home'.

His parents died in the war. He knows very little about the war - the records have all been redacted and hidden, and it isn't like his grandmother likes to talk about anything, much less the way her son died. In this (like in most things), Annabelle is his only willing source of information. 

Annabelle - the dark Eschine woman with the long, spindly legs and the long neck leading up to a face with just eight eyes had scared him, at first. Eschine are far and few between, and there are more whispers about them then there are his people. Jon doesn't always here them, but it's almost like they orbit around her like the station and the planet below it. Maybe they're lies, the things that Eschine can do. But there are stranger things than spinning silks, and living thousands of sun-cycles.

Not to mention that the first time she'd been introduced, his grandmother had called her a "long-time friend", which didn't do her any favors in Jon's mind.

But she _certainly_ likes to talk, and not for the first time he is grateful for universal translators.

She talks about a war, the galactic-wide struggle that had taken his parents from him, and an enemy -

An enemy that can't be defeated. One that will come back. The same things that killed his parents, that took away his home...

* * *

Elias Bouchard knows he isn't crazy. He knows it. 

He saw it - the long, stretched thing, pointing to the sky, the stars...He's nearly ran it over, after all. 

He'd been known to indulge, of course. In alcohol (lightly) and drugs (not lightly), but he hadn't, that day. Not that anyone believed him. 

Besides, he couldn't have imagined that, even on the worst of trips.

It goes like this -

He sees something in the road. Not like a human, not like an animal. He sees it just in time to stop. It turns around, blinks at him with too-many huge red eyes, and stretches, and stretches, and stretches. It points to something in the sky.

And then it flashes in his mind. Images, smells, feelings. A pod, a green flashing light. It's cold, and spinning, floating in a way that leaves him sure that he's somewhere that can't be reached.

He's halfway out of the car before he realizes it, stepping towards the _thing_. He quickly gets back into the car and locks the doors.

And then the long, stretched thing with the many sharp legs, and the soft song is gone. And he knew he has to find it - _will_ find it, however long it took, and then his reputation would be repaired...not to mention the fame, the money.

* * *

"Jon?"

Jon doesn't verbally reply to Martin, just twists around in the bathroom doorway and blinks at him. He's not crying anymore, but he wobbles. 

"You don't want to sleep in the bathtub."

"It's fine."

"It's really not," Martin says. "None of this is really fine. I'd like - I want you close. You don't have to, but - but there's room for you, if you want."

He waits.

And waits.

Jon pulls himself towards Martin, and envelops him in Jet-black tentacles. "Please. I'd rather not be alone. Even if it's just the other room."


End file.
